Pampered by my Billionaire CEO Husband

As soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth, I felt my heart sink to the pit of my stomach within the next second as I froze in place. My eyes widened with disbelief and shock and my lips were left agape as I stared at her as though time had come to a standstill. My mind was struggling to comprehend what I had just heard when her voice snapped me back to reality this time.

"I think this is something we need to talk about over tea," she suggested with a smile.

I nodded after a moment of hesitation, my mind was still a mess as my thoughts and questions were swirling inside of my head like a damn hurricane. "Yeah, sure..." I managed to mutter under my breath.

Before I knew it, I found myself sitting across the table from Natalie in a quaint little cafe not too far away from the studio. Of course she had booked out the cafe, and it was just the two of us with a barista standing behind the coffee machine, far away from us.

I lifted my head and watched as she took a sip of her hot chamomile tea before setting it back down on the table and leaning back into the chair with a relaxed and comfortable posture. She turned to look at me and our eyes met briefly before her gaze flickered down to glance at my cup of untouched hot latte.

"You are not drinking your coffee," she pointed out.

My heart was still thudding loudly against my chest, threatening to burst out at any second as my mind raced with thoughts. I let out a soft nervous chuckle and we locked eyes this time.

"I’m confused," I admitted. "You said that you think I’m your daughter?" I questioned with a raised brow, disbelief written all over my face as I looked at her with a blank look plastered across my face.

"Mhmm..." she murmured under her breath casually as she maintained her calm demeanour despite this bizarre situation, like it was nothing.

"What... do you... mean?" I asked, stuttering as I struggled to find the right words to say. "How do you... know?"

"I..." Her voice trailed off as she hesitated for a brief moment and silence enveloped the both of us for what seemed like an eternity. "I hired a PI to check when I had my doubts," she confessed within the next second as she averted her eyes and lowered her gaze.

My eyes widened in the next moment as I looked at her. "You what? You hired a PI?" I repeated, tossing her words right back at her with an incredulous look plastered across my face.

Nothing seemed to make sense to me at that point in time. Why would she have that doubt out of nowhere? Why did she believe that I am her real daughter? It couldn’t be, I saw the maternity test results myself. But my questions were about to be answered.

I watched as she nodded and pressed her lips into a thin line. She took in a deep breath and let her eyes flutter shut for a while before she opened her eyes once again and our gazes matched.

"This is going to make me sound like a bad person but..." she paused and silence stretched between us once again as she let out another breath and ran her hand through her long dark hair. "Stella is diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer," she revealed, her voice feeling heavy as a tinge of sadness laced her voice. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

My eyes widened in surprise as a gasp emerged from my throat. "What?" I mumbled under my breath. Even though we never got along and I never really liked her, the news still shocked me as a concerned and worried expression masked my features.

"She is doing well, and she has started her treatment," she continued and I found myself relaxing a little. "But... gosh, I hate myself for even thinking about it," she remarked, her voice laced with a hint of guilt and sadness.

I leaned in closer towards her. "You can tell me," I urged in a soft and gentle tone as anticipation hung on my face while I patiently waited for her to say something.

Soon the words that were sitting on the tip of her tongue came rolling off.

"When I heard that Eve was diagnosed with breast cancer I was devastated," she began. "But when I was scanning through her reports and documents... I noticed her blood type and a thought popped into my head. She had blood type B- but James and I both have blood type A. It’s impossible for her to have blood type B."

I felt my heart stop beating at that moment, shock overwhelmed me in an instant and realisation dawned upon me. Did Evelyn know about my plan and somehow managed to fake the maternity test results? How was it that the results told me that Jennifer is my mother but now Natalie is claiming that I am her real daughter instead? I needed an explanation but only more questions popped into my head as the frown etched onto my face deepened.

"It took me a couple of days but I finally decided to hire a PI to investigate this," she continued, her voice breaking me out of my little reverie, jolting me back to reality. I looked up and our eyes met, emotions running wild in my eyes as I stared at her with a blank expression. "I needed to find out the truth or else I couldn’t stop thinking about it..." she said, her voice cracking towards the end of the sentence as she was starting to choke on her own words, tears glistening in her eyes.

I reached out cautiously before I held onto her hand in an attempt to comfort her without saying a single word.

She let out a shaky breath as she sniffled. "I didn’t tell anyone about this. Not Evelyn, not James. To be honest... I haven’t even opened the test results yet, but deep down in the hollow of my heart, I think... I know the answer."

There was a pause before she continued. "I think you do too. I know you did a maternity test on your mother too. You suspected something, didn’t you?" She questioned and instinctively, I slowly pulled my hands away from hers.

I looked at her dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. "I... I did," I finally admitted, my voice came out shaky as I spoke and the memories from that day came rushing into my mind. "But the results..." my voice trailed off.

"The results have been tampered with, Aurelia. It was Evelyn who did it."

Shock flashed past my eyes for a fleeting moment. "She did what? She tampered with the results?" I repeated to myself as I exhaled deeply. "I was right... She found out what I was doing and she didn’t want me to know the truth," I mumbled to myself under my breath, my eyes shifting around anxiously for what I knew was about to come.

"I think... She was afraid that we might chase her out after we found out the truth."

"I...I don’t know what to say..." I said as I lowered my head, her words were still circling around at the back of my mind, haunting me.

"You don’t have to say anything, Aurelia. I know you need time to process this," she said in a kind voice as she reached out to place her hands on top of mine. She then pulled her hands back and reached into her purse to pull out a plain-looking envelope and placed it onto the table between us. "This envelope contains the results. I arranged for a maternity and paternity test for us. You don’t have to look at it now if you don’t wish to."

My eyes flickered down to glance at the seemingly innocent piece of paper lying on the table and I gulped inaudibly as my heart began to race inside of my chest.

"No, I would like to know," I said, as my voice trembled slightly with anxiety.

Slowly, I found myself reaching out to grab the envelope. My hands trembled as I tried to tear it open and the air was crackling with unspoken tension and the atmosphere remained tense. The place was eerily quiet and I could practically hear the sound of a pin drop falling onto the ground as the sound of my heart beating echoed inside my ears.

I carefully pulled out the piece of paper from inside and a wave of familiarity washed over me at that moment. My eyes immediately zoomed in on the numbers printed on it, then a gasp left my parted lips.

"It says... It says that it’s a 99.999% match," I said with disbelief in my tone and I looked up to meet her eyes once again. "I...I am your daughter?"